A fight over a McDonald’s sauce packet in the District last weekend left one teen girl dead, another charged with murder and a community grappling with how susceptible young people of both sexes are to getting caught up in the city’s juvenile crime crisis — as either victim or perpetrator.
Metropolitan Police said a 16-year-old girl from Waldorf, Maryland, faces murder charges in the stabbing death of Naima Liggon, a 16-year-old who is also from Waldorf. The teen suspect had a knife on her when she was taken into custody Sunday just a block away from the incident, according to authorities.
Police first learned of the incident around 2:10 a.m. Sunday when officers responded to a local hospital to assess Naima, who was suffering from stab wounds. The teen later died from her injuries.
An MPD detective testified at the suspect’s arraignment Monday that the victim and the accused came to the District together for a party with three other people.
The teens got into a fight over sweet-and-sour sauce after leaving the McDonald’s on the corner of 14th and U streets Northwest toward the end of their night. The two got out of the car to continue their fight, and the police said that’s when Naima was stabbed twice — once in the abdomen, and once in the chest.
The girl’s defense attorney said the young suspect should be released to her parents because, the attorney argued, the girl was defending herself from Naima and another passenger who both attacked the suspect outside of the car.
But the D.C. judge ordered the girl to be kept behind bars since surveillance video showed Naima getting stabbed on the sidewalk, and then again as she tried to get back into the car. The teen’s next detention hearing will be Friday.
“The impact of this senseless loss has affected our family, our friends, and our community,” Joy Liggon, Naima’s mother, said in a statement. “Naima will never see her prom or her graduation. We will not get to see her graduate from college or get married or have kids.”
The case is the latest evidence of a disturbing trend indicating teen girls are as willing as their male counterparts to use deadly force to settle disputes or commit violent offenses in the District.
Police said they arrested a 13-year-old girl last month in connection with a carjacking. The girl was allegedly part of a trio of juveniles who beat up and stole a victim’s car in Northwest.
A week later, police said they were on the lookout for two juvenile girls who carried out a shooting in Southeast.
Teen girls have also contributed to the scourge of robberies hitting the District this summer.
A 15-year-old from Suitland, Maryland, was taken into custody last month after police said she robbed five people over a three-day period. A different 15-year-old girl, who lives in Southeast, was arrested and charged with robbing four people within four hours on Aug. 4.
D.C. residents have been shocked by the number of young offenders all year long, but witnessing girls be implicated in crimes as heinous as their male peers is striking a different chord.
“When we think of little girls, we don’t think of stabbing. We don’t think of being charged with murder. We don’t think of someone losing their life due to being stabbed,” Salim Adofo, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8, told The Washington Times. “We don’t think of a little girl possibly being incarcerated for stabbing someone. Those are just things that just [don’t] come to mind.”
Why juvenile girls are committing violent crimes is unclear.
Asiyah Timimi, who runs the R.O.C.K. Now organization that works to reduce recidivism, told The Times that she believes it’s a combination of drug use and romantic interests with boys who are also breaking the law.
She said it’s common for teen boys to introduce their girlfriends to crime by having them set up rivals or run other illicit errands for them.
Wendy Hamilton, a D.C. public schools employee and also an ANC commissioner in Ward 8, blames TV shows such as the Real Housewives or the Bad Girls Club for glamorizing cattiness and making it aspirational for young girls.
She said this attitude can elevate minor tiffs on social media into real life fights on campus.
Last weekend’s slaying happened in an area that will fall under a juvenile curfew taking effect Friday.
Police would’ve had authority to detain the suspected killer and Naima on sight since both girls were in one of the designated curfew zones past midnight.
Children who are picked up by police will be taken to the D.C.’s juvenile facility in Northeast, where they will have to wait for their parents or guardians to come get them.
But observers are skeptical the curfew would’ve prevented the deadly stabbing.
Mr. Adofo said the District doesn’t enforce the curfew that’s already on the books. He added that the most effective curfews come from parents — not cops — and efforts should be made to give struggling families the necessary resources to provide for their kids, rather than relying on police.
A 2003 Department of Justice study looked at how effective the District’s juvenile curfew was at driving down crime among youth offenders. Researchers concluded the 1995 law establishing the curfew was “not effective at reducing total juvenile arrests.”
Further, a joint report from nonprofit journalism outfit The Marshall Project and the Baltimore Banner published this year found that curfews don’t address youth crime problems because most juveniles commit violent crimes during the day.
Still, a change in police tactics can’t account for the deeper issues affecting the District’s youth that Ms. Timimi said first sprouted up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What is going on in our society where children are just reacting and they don’t take life serious,” Ms. Timimi said. “We’re just losing so many people — so many children, so many youth — either to prison or death, as well as drugs. It is really, really a depressing generation.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.